Prince has kept his famous vault locked up tight since the release of Crystal Ball in 1998, The Vault... Old Friends 4 Sale in 1999, the track Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic on the same-titled album in 1999 and the digital release of Splash in 2001. And it's been 10 years now since the cancellation of Roadhouse Garden in 1999 and Crystal Ball II in 2000, so I think it's safe by now to give up on those ones ever seeing release.

But the sad truth is that people are more interested in what Prince is keeping in the vault that dates back to the 80's and 90's than any of the new music he's seen fit to record and release in the past ten years.

I think it's high time Prince gave fans what they really want: Another vault-release that doesn't include anything from the past 10 years, except maybe Hot Summer. I like that one.

Release it! What are you saving it for, Prince? I'm sure there's plenty of songs from back in the good old days that doesn't include lyrics that go against your Jehova faith.

Yeah we want the good music released, asap.

And re-mastered albums too.

And live DVDs.

but.. I fear Prince will wait till 2030, when he is gone (dead), unfortunately I fear most of us will be gone (dead) too at that time, when the vaults are finally opened.

I wonder what Prince is waiting for, I hate all this waiting.

I would be delighted with anything from the vault, from any period. Material from the 80's and 90's would be fantastic, but i would be equally happy to hear songs from the last few months too. The video does not really interest me the same, i could live without that, but again, i would be happy if he did decide to release something on dvd.

As the OP stated, there must be more than enough material to put together an album or two, that does not infringe upon his current religious beliefs.

We got In A Large Room last year. Re-recorded, but still...

Prince knows that the old stuff kills his new stuff so he is embarrassed by it. Crystal Ball was such a mish mash because he wanted to avoid making it obvious just how wack he was becoming.

I know this may be a bit fucked, but I say they should wait for his death and then release it. It'd being him back into the limelight and sell like hotcakes, regardless of quality. I don't really think the vault is as extensive as people say it is, though.

[Edited 8/16/10 8:25am]

2freaky4church1 said:

Prince knows that the old stuff kills his new stuff so he is embarrassed by it. Crystal Ball was such a mish mash because he wanted to avoid making it obvious just how wack he was becoming.

Yeah, his old stuff puts his new stuff to shame, which is probably the main reason why he doesn't release it. He's trying to avoid the comparisons.

Huxley said:

We got In A Large Room last year. Re-recorded, but still...

Actually, we didn't get that. It wasn't downloadable, so if you have it, it's a bootleg.

Alguy said:

I know this may be a bit fucked, but I say they should wait for his death and then release it. It'd being him back into the limelight and sell like hotcakes, regardless of quality. I don't really think the vault is as extensive as people say it is, though.

[Edited 8/16/10 8:25am]

But what if Prince outlives ALL of us? Then we'll NEVER get to hear it.

It would be great to get some of this stuff, but on the other hand we are getting plenty of music.

Pretty much an album each year and a couple of songs on top.

Whether you like the recent stuff thats a personal choice.

Whats interesting is that we no longer get outtakes since the 90's, many could argue that's because they appear on the released albums.....

For me there's so much music in the discography, that revisiting alot of the material released or not often brings out a new take on the same song.

That's part of life and growing up , what you heard when you were 11 is different to what you hear at 40.

Though Head is Head

2freaky4church1 said:

Prince knows that the old stuff kills his new stuff so he is embarrassed by it. Crystal Ball was such a mish mash because he wanted to avoid making it obvious just how wack he was becoming.

I agree wholeheartedly with the first of your post.

But to be honest, there is no bad track on the Crystal Album, apart from, in my opinion Tell Me How... which, because it had already been released, was a double waste of space.

i'm actually curious about the unreleased material from the last decade. We know so much about the outtakes from he 80s and early 90s, even the xtuff that isn't citculating, but we know nothing about his unreleased material from the 2000s. There probably isn't as much stuff compared to the 80s, but I imagine there are quite a few tracks left over from the last few albums.

The mystery of it makes it more enticing, much like Prince himself in the early days.

He may not own them.

The vault is overrated to me. I am not too impressed with the unreleased stuff out there. Crystal Ball had most of the good stuff out there and that cd honestly sucks. Prince has done right and released the best music he has. Lets face it. He is tapped out. He even said himself he tapped out the vault when he released Emancipation back in 97.

dandeeland said:

He even said himself he tapped out the vault when he released Emancipation back in 97.

There aren't really any Vault tracks on Emancipation. The oldest track on Emancipation would be Somebody's Somebody which can be dated back to 1993.

[Edited 8/16/10 15:40pm]

Huxley said:

We got In A Large Room last year. Re-recorded, but still...

re-recorded and completely ruined.

All you people dismissing The Vault or even thinking it's that extensive are, basically, wrong. Never heard of "Testament" or "Revelations 2.1"? RAMMED with quality unreleased material, and even then that's only what has leaked publically, if you add what has leaked only in the circles of the hardest of the hardcore collectors you'd be adding a substantial amount more, and even then, what's leaked only represents a FRACTION of what's in there.

There's at least 10 albums of classic, top quality material still in there. At LEAST.

Militant said:

All you people dismissing The Vault or even thinking it's that extensive are, basically, wrong. Never heard of "Testament" or "Revelations 2.1"? RAMMED with quality unreleased material, and even then that's only what has leaked publically, if you add what has leaked only in the circles of the hardest of the hardcore collectors you'd be adding a substantial amount more, and even then, what's leaked only represents a FRACTION of what's in there.

There's at least 10 albums of classic, top quality material still in there. At LEAST.

umm...